proached for foppery and neglect, or commended for my decency and diligence.

"I have since frequented clubs and parish meetings, and have always foreseen, by the aid of this criterion, who was to be the speaker, and what turn the argument was to take. I know, the moment a man advances towards the poker, that there is something stirring in his head; and, when the subject has been politics, I have been able to pronounce, from a violent raking of the bottom bar, that his indignation would be directed against places and pensions. I can now determine, at a morning call, whether or not I am to be asked to dinner, by the use that is made of the poker. Whenever I have any business to settle, I desire to talk it over before the fire; and no man handles my money, till I know how he handles my poker. Authors are the only characters out of my reach, who are seldom seen to stir a fire on any provocation; either because they have no fire at home to stir, or because they are seldom placed within reach of them abroad.

"Thus, sir, do I call over the coals every man I meet; and the course of my discoveries can only be suspended by a warm summer, or a detention of the colliers. You will at once see the advantage of my practice over physiognomy, chirography, chiromancy, or any other occult art, as a touch of the windcolic may stamp a very good-natured fellow a churl;' hand-writing may be forged, and the hand itself be hardened by labour: but the plan I offer will always be practicable, while cold pinches and fire burns. Yours, with great warmth, "PETER POKER."

N° 16. TUESDAY, MAY 1.

"O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane ! » "Oh, the ridiculous cares of men! how much nothingness there is in their pursuits!"

EMPIRE OF NOTHING.

A VISION.

AMONG my qualifications for the undertaking in which I am embarked, I should do myself great injustice not to include my talent for dreaming. When my waking thoughts begin to fail me, I have nothing to do but to place myself in my mother's great chair, and fall deliberately asleep. This I do with such success, that the old lady says I have a genius this way; and very much commends the felicity of my sleeping fancies. Upon these occasions, however, when, to prevent my readers from sleeping, I find it necessary to fall asleep myself, I never omit the ceremony of putting on my figured roquelaure, which exhibits a sort of mystical hieroglyphical pattern, and may, on that account, contain as much virtue and efficacy, as Mrs. Corbyn's original root for gold and silver dreams.

Yesterday being Thursday, there was a meeting of our society, in which Mr. Anthony Allworth delivered some excellent observations on the vulgar tautology of fashionable life, and the nonsense and nullity of most of those pursuits which fill out the measure of our existence and our exertions. I came home, determined to follow up my friend's remarks

through the course of a paper; but finding myself sinking below my model, in spite of my utmost efforts, I called for my oracular gown, and dropping into the great chair, where I could neither see nor be seen, was presently charmed into a gentle sleep, that produced a new creation around me.

Methought I was wandering through a dark forest, and, propelled by an irresistible impulse, was pursuing my way, with pain and weariness, through a never-ending labyrinth of brakes and thickets, until on a sudden I found myself near the mouth of a prodigious cavern, out of which there issued vast clouds of fog and vapour. An unaccountable attraction

drew me onwards, till I reached the spot, where I could not abstain from standing at the entrance of the cave, and stooping forwards as much as I could, to gain a view of the interior parts of it. At this moment I was attacked with such a giddiness and stupor, accompanied with such a strange singing in my head, that with all my efforts I could not keep my feet; but, after a few turns, fell prone into the hollow abyss, and seemed to fall through a "vast vacuity" "ten thousand fathom deep."

Τοσον ενέρθ' ύπο γης όσον έρανος ες' από γαίης.

My fall seemed to resemble that of the Titans, who were nine days and nights in reaching the profundity of Tartarus; and I had began to think I never should regain my footing, when suddenly I found myself in the midst of a spacious plain, at one extremity of which I could discern the spires and turrets of a vast city. As the whole country was enveloped in a thick fog, every object appeared extremely large, and out of all proportion; and a crowd of people that were amusing themselves with

some plays and gambols, in the champaign that stretched itself before me, put me strongly in mind of Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, which was very poetically named by the ancient Saxons, "The Dance of the Giants."

While I was looking about with the usual stare of a foreigner, there came running towards me, very much out of breath, a civil gentleman, with a body swollen out to a vast circumference, and a countenance extremely bloated, who offered very politely to be my conductor and interpreter, as I seemed to have no acquaintance in the place where I was. I thanked him very much for his condescension, and accepted his offer with the best grace I could, declaring myself a perfect stranger to the country in which I found myself. "I guessed as much," he replied, with great civility in his looks, but still puffing and blowing as if he never could have recovered himself. "You are not in that plump, high-fed condition so general among the natives of this country; and it is plain from your appearance, that you have not been nourished with our country foods, our saw-dust soups, and stews of oyster-shells. I must begin then with informing you that you are at this moment in the kingdom of Nothing, the most populous and flourishing empire of all the states of the universe."—"Is it possible," cried I, "that this can be the case, when the very resistance of the ground to the pressure of my feet, and the perfect use I have of all my senses, prove incontestibly that what moves before me is not inanity, but substance and matter?"

"Your remark," replied my new acquaintance, " is not unnatural; but you are to learn that the nothings of which this our country is composed, are not distinguished by their impalpability, but their vanity and inutility; not by their want of weight, but

their want of value: and we have no one article among us, that, on a fair valuation, would purchase an old in the island song, have left-I you say, on a fair valuation; because, somehow or other, our inanities and vanities have risen to such high estimation among you of late years, and our emigrations have been so numerous and frequent by means of our balloons, that his Inane Majesty has been obliged to oppose severe prohibitions and restrictions to this increasing rage, which would otherwise soon exhaust and depopulate his kingdom: he has therefore, within these few days, recalled, by a very solemn edict, all his loving subjects wherever distributed; and I doubt not, but that you will encounter, by and by, many old faces, if not old friends, who have taken much less time about the journey than probably you have done, by reason of their knowledge of the shortest way hither. When you return, you will be astonished at the depopulated state of your own country, and yet will wonder at the tumult and violence which prevails; for those of our people who are latest arrived, report, that the virtuous and vicious parts of mankind, for want of some intermediate characters to break and divide their forces, are fallen upon each other with unqualified fury. But while your curiosity is so powerfully excited by the objects that lie before you, I will not detain you by any political discussions. We will now proceed towards the city, which is called Tintinabia; and where one hour will give you a greater insight into our manners and customs, than a whole day spent in discoursing upon them. I have two or three very great philosophers to dine with me to-day on some of the best dephlogisticated air the country can produce; and I hope for the pleasure of introducing you to them. I can promise you, besides, some various